Makeup Forever Face Palette Review: 12 Shades For A Full Face
Milabu Pick
Milabu Rating
Price Category: Pro-Grade
- $85.00 Retail
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Pros
- All-in-one face palette
- Customizable shades
- Travel friendly
- Buildable coverage
- Minimal exaggeration of texture, peach fuzz, or other imperfections
- Suitable for all skin types
- Wears off evenly without looking patchy
Cons
- Not the longest wearing (6 hours)
- Can contribute to excess oils
Makeup Forever Face Palette Review:
An honest review of the Makeup Forever Face Palette, comparing each cream formula to other top industry performers.
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Makeup Forever Face Palette gives you a full face in one convenient compact.
Full face makeup palettes are the trendy thing right now. If you’re on makeup TikTok, you’ve surely come across one or two on your FYP. Collectively, we’ve tried a few, but the best we’ve found is Make Up For Ever HD All-In-One Face Palette. So, what makes this face palette so special? It has a cream makeup for every use: foundation, concealer contour/bronzer, blush, and highlight. This makes it very travel friendly and perfect for the minimalistic girly who doesn’t want a ton of products cluttering their vanity. Let’s jump into Makeup Forever Face Palette Review.
Promises vs. Performance: Full face makeup, simplified.
Make Up For Ever promises this 12-pan palette is all you need for a full face makeup look. The palette comes in 2 color harmonies of 12 shades each to suit light to medium or tan to deep skin tones. In the palette, there’s 3 cream foundation shades, 4 concealer/corrector shades, 2 blush shades, 2 bronzer/contour shades, and 1 highlighter shade. The cream formulas are lightweight and buildable with a natural finish. Make Up For Ever has also made the formula cleaner since the revamp of their iconic Ultra HD Foundation Palette, removing synthetic wax (in the blush and highlighter formula), no BHT, no allergens, and less than 1% of perfume, allowing all skin types to be able to wear it.
My Review Thoughts: Makeup Forever Face Palette
For best results, you will want to pair this face makeup palette with a primer and setting powder. The formula on its own has a solid 6 hours of wear before it begins breaking apart, wearing off, and looking a bit oily. As far as a cream formula goes, this one does wear beautifully without exaggerating texture, dryness, peach fuzz, or other imperfections. It looks pretty natural on and, when it does start wearing off, it doesn’t look super patchy or uneven. Is it the best formula when compared to individual cream foundations, blushes, or bronzers? Not quite. But, if simple, convenient makeup is what you’re going for, this would be one of the better face palettes to try.
Quick Rating Rundown
Let’s Review How It Compares: Here’s how the Makeup Forever Face Palette compares to individual makeup products.
To properly compare the performance of the formulas in the Make Up For Ever Face Palette, we’ve broken it down by categories: cream foundation, cream concealer, cream blush, cream bronzer, and cream highlight. This allows a true one-to-one comparison on how each formula performs when compared to top industry performers. Because, let’s be honest, you’re going to buy a full face palette for all the formulas, not just one makeup product that’s really good.
Makeup Forever Face Palette Individual Dupes:
A great Makeup Forever Face Palette (foundation) dupe is Milani Conceal + Perfect Cream Foundation. Milani’s cream formula is really smooth, balmy and easy to apply. The texture and coverage is really similar to Makeup Forever’s cream foundation.
The closest Makeup Forever Face Palette (cream concealer) dupe from the drugstore is Almay Skin Perfecting concealer. It’s gentle formula easy to use and provides lightweight, natural coverage that lasts all day. Make Up For Ever concealer provides more coverage.
e.l.f. Putty Blush and Putty Bronzer are wonderful dupes for Makeup Forever face palette blush and bronzer formulas. Both formulas are emollient, creamy and really easy to build pigment providing natural finish.
Performance Rating – Cream Foundation
As far as cream foundation goes, the formula in the Make Up For Ever Palette is one of the easiest to apply. It has a balmy texture that glides onto skin smoothy, blending out without exaggerating any imperfections from texture to bumps to peach fuzz. The coverage is similar to other top performers like Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Wear, MERIT Minimalist, Westman Atelier Vital Skin, and Milani Conceal + Perfect. Typically, cream foundations cap out at a medium coverage and begin to look heavy and cakey if built up to a fuller coverage. Most cream foundations have a natural or soft matte finish. Personally, I think the finish of this Make Up For Ever formula is stunning and equivalent to others.
However, cream foundations usually always lack in longevity. I find that most only have a 6 hour wear before they begin breaking apart and becoming oily. The best wearing cream foundations I have found are definitely the Lancome Teint Idole Ultra Wear and Westman Atelier Vital Skin. To get the best wear out of this Make Up For Ever palette, definitely begin with a primer and finish with a setting powder and/or setting spray.
Recommendations
- Primer: Exa Jump Start Smoothing Primer, $34
- Setting powder: Laura Mercier Translucent Setting Powder, $40
- Setting spray: ONE/SIZE by Patrick Starrr On ‘Til Dawn Setting Spray, $30
Performance Rating – Cream Concealer
Finding a good cream concealer can be tricky. While they typically provide fuller coverage than liquids (usually, not always!), this means they are more prone to looking cakey and heavy. I’ve fallen in love with a few different ones over the years, to include NARS Soft Matte, Hynt Beauty Duet Perfecting, and, my drugstore fave, Almay Skin Perfecting.
If I had to pick the #1 best cream concealer, I’d say that is NARS Soft Matte Concealer. Soft Matte has buildable medium to full coverage with a soft matte finish. Despite the thicker cream consistency, it resists creasing, settling, and caking making it a great concealer for under eyes or blemishes. Plus, it’s one of the longest wearing.
A newer favorite of mine is the Hynt Beauty Duet Perfecting Concealer. This one is a cleaner formula free of gluten, synthetic fragrance, silicone, dyes, among others. It’s lightweight, provides buildable coverage with a natural finish that resists creasing and settling. The only con to this concealer is that it isn’t the longest lasting on its own, but its longevity can be extended with a setting powder.
With the concealers in the Make Up For Ever palette, you’re not going to get full coverage like you would with NARS Soft Matte. If you have acne scarring, discoloration, redness, or any other imperfections you may still need a separate concealer for best results. But, you can create a custom shade pretty easily, which I’m happy about!
Performance Rating – Make Up For Ever Face Palette Cream Blush
Let me start out by saying how much I love cream blush and cream bronzer. They are definitely my preferred formulas as of late! I’ve tried so many and I have a few favorites in the blush category: Rose Inc Blush Divine, Tower 28 Beachplease, and e.l.f. Putty Blush. So which would be a Makeup Forever Face Palette dupe (blush)? The formula of the blushes in the Make Up For Ever Face Palette is closest to that of e.l.f. Putty – balmy, but not as balmy as Tower 28 BeachPlease, and not the same cream texture as Rose Inc Blush Divine. It applies easily, gliding over imperfections and without lifting any product underneath.
The one thing I will say is that as someone who loves to switch up their blush, I don’t love how similar the blush shades are in the Make Up For Ever face palette. They’re pretty identical, with one being a medium-toned pink and the other barely any different, just a tad more peachy. I wish they would have done two different shades, like an orange and a mauve so that way I could mix and match to create custom blush shades.
Performance Rating – Make Up For Ever Face Palette Cream Bronzer
What’s the difference between cream bronzer and cream contour? Simply put, bronzers pull warmer and help achieve a sunkissed look. Contour helps sculpt the face for more definition. While not the same, they are similar and often bronzers do sculpt the face, however, contours often don’t bronze the skin. I prefer more of a bronzer-contour hybrid, that can both warm up my complexion and add some definition. The Make Up For Ever Face Palette comes with 2 shades that can be used for just that.
Some of my favorite individual cream bronzers are Saie Sun Melt, and Makeup by Mario SoftSculpt Sculpting Stick. I find that all of these, at least on my skin tone, work to both warm up my complexion while also adding definition. Oh and let’s not forget a great Makeup Forever Face Palette dupe (bronzer option) – elf putty bronzer.
Advertised Product Highlights
Make Up For Ever HD Skin All-In-One Face Palette
# OF SHADES: 2 palettes (each with 12 shades: 3 cream foundation, 4 concealer/corrector, 2 blush, 2 contouring/bronzer, 1 highlighting)
FORMULATION: Cream
FINISH: Natural
COVERAGE: Buildable light to full
SKIN TYPE: All skin types, including sensitive
LONGEVITY: No claims
PROTECTION: No SPF
BENEFITS: All-in-one face palette for a full complexion look; Blendable; Buildable; No oily finish; Correct, conceal, color, contour, and illuminate skin
CLEAN BEAUTY CLAIMS: Free of synthetic wax, BHT, allergens, and perfume (less than 1%).
Edited by Maddie